


Sensibilities

by virtueofvice



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3100400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virtueofvice/pseuds/virtueofvice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle ruins her dress, and dashes off to draw herself a bath. Rumpelstiltskin cannot quite help himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sensibilities

Just a cup, he'd said, long ago. Just a cup, and she'd been clumsy with it - not a true princess after all, but only a merchant's daughter. Not trained in social graces, the motherless daughter of a graceless man who married far above his station. Charming, for all that, and with a figure that drew his eye like a magnet. Petite. Soft. Fragile. Brave. He should have let her go, but he forced her to stay. And in the end her gentle heart and his desperate possession brought ruin to them both.

Once, in the fall when thunderheads rolled over the mountains threatening hail, she had been refilling the lamps with oil. Much of the Dark Castle had been lit by candlelight or not at all, but Belle had seen to the lamps and sconces in the areas she frequented. She had an aversion to the dark. He'd startled her, creaking leather and high, cruel titter, laughing at her alarm as he materialized over her left shoulder like the devil he was. He often indulged himself in such pettiness, taking advantage of the girl's tender sensibilities to tease her, tugging at her polite attentiveness and whisper of affection like a cat with one claw snagged in a length of silk. 

On this night, damp and dark and with the wind howling like a madman around the castle turrets, he'd startled Belle - for no real reason that he could recall now, these many years later - and she'd spilled a quantity of lamp oil on her skirts. With a shocked gasp and quick unearned apology, she'd dashed off up the stairs to her tower room to bathe and change. 

He didn't follow her. Though her father had in the end allowed her to trade herself for his safety, bargaining her like any other possession, Rumpelstiltskin allowed her some small measure of privacy. But only a measure. His body stayed at his wheel, calmly spinning out more precious metal than most town markets would ever see. His mind followed the girl, consciousness drifting through the halls to hover, like a ghost, in the doorway of her room. 

The heavy oak door was drawn and latched, modesty and propriety guiding her actions as she'd been taught. Belle would avoid offending her host's sensibilities, even if her host was the Dark One. His sensibilities were more indelicate than she supposed, however, and his awareness seeped through the door like fog through the rushes. 

She stood with her back to him, folding the stained dress into a basket with long, graceful movements. Her bare feet brushed over the cold stone floor, calf muscles curved and smooth in the dim light of a single candle. A tub of hot water waited by the fireplace; the castle of a wizard unique in possessing what would someday be considered modern conveniences. The white shift with the ruffled collar, soft cotton layered under the wool of her dress, hung loose to her hips. Her hair fell out of its coiled bun as she gripped the hem and pulled it over her head. This, too, went in the basket, the line of her back curving elegantly as she leaned to drop it in. Candlelight shone golden on her skin, highlighting peaks and valleys in velvet softness. The trimness of her waist, flaring out in rounded, feminine hips. The dip of a shoulder as she pinned her hair atop her head with a simple wooden skewer. The slight gasp, hissing first in, then out between her teeth as she lowered a toe, a leg, her entire body into the steaming water. The scent of thyme and lavender, citrus and dusky twilight, from the small cake of soap she'd made herself. 

Feeling his breathing shudder, his body on the short spinning stool throb with all too human longing, Rumpelstiltskin fled. He opened his dragon's eyes with a soft gasp, blinking once to reassert his grip on the present. His hands stilled on the wheel, and with a frustrated mutter he rose and vanished away into the darkness, preoccupying himself with his own nefarious business.


End file.
